Advances in medical technologies, recent court rulings and emerging political trends have brought with them a quantity of life-and-death choices which quite a few have never just before deemed. The looming prospect of legalized physician-assisted suicide is 1 such choice which severely erodes the inherent worth and dignity of human life. The significantly-publicized efforts of particular medical doctors to provide carbon monoxide poisoning or prescribe lethal drugs for their terminally ill patients constitute euthanasia. So could the removal of certain life-sustaining therapies from a patient who is not in a terminal condition. Euthanasia and willful suicide, in any type, are offenses against life they will have to be and are rejected by the vast majority of U.S. states.
Even so, folks faced with these difficult dilemmas really should be produced aware that there are morally-proper, life-affirming legal solutions obtainable to them. 1 such alternative, for Catholics and other folks, can be a “overall health care energy of lawyer” and “living will.” South Carolina State law permits you to appoint an individual as your agent to make overall health care decisions for you in the occasion you drop the capability to make a decision for yourself. This appointment is executed by suggests of a “well being care power of lawyer” form, a model for which can be obtained from your attorney.
A wellness care energy of lawyer can be a morally and legally acceptable suggests of safeguarding your wishes, values and religious beliefs when faced with a serious illness or debilitating accident. Accordingly, for persons wishing to execute overall health care powers of attorney, see the following instructions and guidance from the authoritative teachings and traditions of different religious faiths.
The intent of the well being care power of lawyer law is to let adults to delegate their God-offered, legally-recognized correct to make health care choices to a designated and trusted agent. The law does not intend to encourage or discourage any particular health care treatment. Nor does it legalize or market euthanasia, suicide or assisted suicide. The wellness care power of attorney law enables you, or any competent adult, to designate an “agent,” such as a household member or close pal, to make wellness care choices for you if you shed the ability to make a decision for oneself in the future. This is done by completing a health care energy of lawyer form.
You…
o Have the correct to make all of your own well being care decisions whilst capable of undertaking so. The wellness care energy of lawyer only becomes efficient when and if you grow to be incapacitated via illness or accident.
o Have the proper to challenge your doctor’s determination that you are not capable of creating your own healthcare choices.
o CAN give special directions about your healthcare remedy to your agent and can forbid your agent from generating specific therapy decisions. To do so, you basically need to communicate your wishes, beliefs and instructions to your agent. Instructions about any specific remedies or procedures which you need or do not need beneath special conditions can also be written in your well being care power of lawyer and/or supplied in a separate living will.
o Can revoke your well being care energy of attorney or the appointment of your agent at any time although competent.
o May perhaps not designate as your agent an administrator or employee of the hospital, nursing household or mental hygiene facility to which you are admitted, unless they are associated by blood, marriage or adoption. 1996
Your agent…
o Can commence creating decisions for you only when your medical doctor determines that you are no longer in a position to make wellness care choices for oneself.
o May well make any and all overall health care choices for you, such as treatment options for physical or mental circumstances and decisions relating to life-sustaining procedures, unless you limit the power of your agent.
o Will not have 營養師 to make decisions about the artificial provision of nutrition and hydration (nourishment and water by way of feeding tubes) unless he or she clearly knows that these choices are in accord with your wishes about these measures.
o Is protected from legal liability when acting in good faith.
o Must base his or her choices on your wishes or, if your wishes can’t be reasonably ascertained, in your “most effective interests.” The agent’s choices will take precedence over the decisions of all other persons, regardless of family members relationships.